> That's one of the reasons I hate Java, because learning Java didn't teach me anything except how truly brain-damaged a language can be. > I learned more in m

> That's one of the reasons I hate Java, because learning Java didn't teach me anything except how truly brain-damaged a language can be. > I learned more in my one year at Google than in the previous thirty. This actually makes sense. It's not about being curious, it's about what you're curious about. I remember once asking one of my friends a very basic question about ring theory (whether a certain ring axiom is overly strong.) He completely refused to consider the problem, because it didn't seem relevant. That's not a lack of curiosity, just a lack of curiosity about irrelevant questions, and math is all about knowing which questions to ask. It's not like you learn nothing by solving the problem, just not anything you would have ever wanted to know.